Learning. Happens. Here.

Reading

Where does the time fly? I can’t believe it’s that time of year again! Time to share our Summer Reading List with you! It’s my 27th year in HCPSS and 22nd year here at Murray Hill Middle School! W00t! A lot of things have changed but some thing stay the same. Like still LOVING to read. Every day. Especially, in the Summer time! There’s nothing better to sit outside, on the beach, under an umbrella, or in a screened in porch and just read. For hours and hours! Where do you like to read? Any verified official Murray Hill kid who answers that in the comments will get a surprise next year! Sorry, Svetlana in Vladivostok, you are not eligible to win, but I still appreciate you reading this blog!

…..also, Pssst! Grownups! The ADULT Summer Reading List is linked at the bottom.

Thanks to our our A+ partner Librarians at the Howard County Library and two of our local HCPSS Middle School Teacher-Librarians we have created this Super Fun Reading List for all the kiddos in our district! (or the world!)

Murray Hill kids – If you read any of these books this summer, we would LOVE to hear what you thought in the comments! Follow us on Instagram to see pics of kids being AWESOME every day in our library and throughout the school!

Also, if you take a picture of yourself reading this summer or visiting a Library & tag me at @TheDaringLibrarian you’ll get a prize! Also, please tag @HoCoLibrary to maybe get some extra SWAG! 😉 But you have to find me in September and remind me, by saying like “Swag Me” because I’m getting old! LOL

From the Howard County Public Library, Our A+ Partners

Welcome to Summer Reading: A Universe of Stories

Join us for Summer Reading KICKOFF on Saturday, June 1 from 10 am to 2 pm at HCLS Miller Branch!

Activities in the Enchanted Garden include planting a sunflower and being a human sundial (weather permitting)

Indoor activities include crafts for children, and encounters with moon rocks and other rocks from space borrowed from NASA

Food trucks: Kona Ice and Say Cheese!

11 – 11:45 pm performance by The Milkshake Duo

12:30 – 1:30 pm fun with Eric Energy

ENROLL in Summer Reading Beginning June 1, 2019

Children, teens, and adults can participate! Enroll online from home or at any HCLS branch OR pick up a paper booklet at any branch.

After you’ve enrolled online or picked up your Summer Reading booklet, log the books you read and mark off activities as you complete them.

For every book/activity you complete, you receive an entry into a branch and systemwide prize drawing for your age group.

FOR ONLINE PARTICIPANTS: HCLS has a new online summer reading portal called BookPoints! Beginning June 1, 2019 you can register for a free summer reading account and create your BookPoints Username and password. Earn up to 41 entries into end-of-summer prize drawings by participating online!

FOR PAPER ONLY PARTICIPANTS: Between July 1 and August 31, return your completed booklet to any library branch to receive one entry into the end-of-summer prize drawings for each book or activity you complete. Check off a minimum of 20 books and/or activities to officially complete Summer Reading 2019: A Universe of Stories!

Come on in and recommend!OR….

It’s kinda like a low-tech YELP review for books!

Hey MHMS Kids, Check this Out!

This is a cool reading promotion that’s all about you! Come on into the Library Media Center and find a book you’ve read and liked. Even better, find a book you LOVED! Like you could even maybe read it again kind of love. Go to the display pictured….

How To: Grab a sticky note and write on the clipboard your book recommendation. You can sign your first name & your grade or just something like “an 8th grader”….I just want to make sure that the other kids reading YOUR note know that it was written by a fellow teen. Leave that book on the shelf, if there’s not enough room, just prop it up or find me or Ms. Bell to help you and feel the warm happy feeling you helped another kid read find a great book!

Don’t know what to write? Here are some suggestions:

I loved this book because…

This is a great read if you liked _______________(list a similar book)

This is reading promotion idea that’s inexpensive, low-tech, includes student voice, and I totally nabbed it from the amazing Librarian Tiff five years ago and I still love it! It’s kind of what you can call an oldie but a goodie. This can work at any time in a School Library or ELA Classroom.

I was inspired by Librarian tiff because she also does this in her School Library and created this amazing graphic below, made it Creative Commons, and gave it out to the world! I love beautiful signage that I don’t have to make myself! Because I’m kinda (occasionally) lazy.

I bought some colorful mini clipboards from Amazon & lined sticky notes. I already had the mini galvanized buckets of golf pencils – stole those from my PAC computer bank. This way kids don’t write ON THE books. Don’t judge me for being a little OCD and not wanting the pencil impressions on the front of a Library book!

Student Voice:

The kiddo can write anything. “I loved this book because…” and sign it their fist name or just “an 8th grader” etc. My kids love seeing what other kids have read. Same idea, but in a low tech way, as my #BookDropLife & Instagram posts.

This way kids can recommend books to other kids and be heard. Simple. Easy. Effective. I think it’s really important to allow kids to feel like they have a voice in the Library Media Center and in our school. Participatory Librarianship.

Save the Stickies!

At the end of the year, when I put this display away, I always take the sticky note off the front of the book and paste it inside the front cover. So the next kid can open the cover, read the book blurb, AND the student recommendation.

Thanks to our our A+ partner Librarians at the Howard County Library and two of our local HCPSS Middle School Teacher-Librarians we have created this Super Fun Reading List for all the kiddos in our district! (or the world!)

Murray Hill kids – If you read any of these books this summer, we would LOVE to hear what you thought in the comments! Follow us on Instagram to see pics of kids being AWESOME every day in our library and throughout the school!

Recommended Summer Reading Lists for the Whole Family!

Kindergarten – Grade 1

Grade 2 – 3

Grade 4 – 5

Middle School

High School

Black Eyed Susan Nominees

Libraries Rock!

Summer Reading Kickoff

Saturday, June 2

Participate in activities, crafts, and games. Enjoy the music of live bands: School of Rock House Band and Charm City Junction. Activities include Kindness Rocks, crafts for children; and Rock Band for teens.

HCLS MILLER BRANCH

Saturday, June 2

10 am – 2 pm

The fun continues all summer, when you enroll in Summer Reading: Libraries Rock! Sign up for a free account at hclibrary.beanstack.org, or pick up a booklet at any branch. Then log the books you read and mark off activities as you complete them for chances to win prizes.

Do you ever get stuck clicking around Amazon buying random stuff you may not really need but suddenly desire? Do you have a mountain of Amazon boxes in your kitchen waiting for each recycle day? Yeah, me neither! [cough] But sometimes I stumble across something that sparks my creativity and I’m like – SO COOL!….Now what can I do with it?

This was the case with a set of 100 antique style keys I found that came with raffia cords & brown card stock tags that I thought would be a cool component of a reading promotion campaign!

Reading is the Key to a Rich & Interesting Life!

If you’re an English or Reading Teacher or a School Librarian please head on over to my professional blog,The Daring Librarian, for buying information, more how-to’s, and FREE Downloadables!

Generating a list of the top 100 readers in my school and letting each kid pick out their preferred special key, I’m presenting it to them one by one including the key on a soft twine for wearing around the neck and a specially stamped commemorative card!

I’m also taking pictures and posting them on Instagram & Twitter of each of our Key Readers!

Miss Caroline leads the pack having readover 100books this year! And still going through them about a book every other day!

Here’s my friend Mr. Ben who is one of my “frequent fliers” and avid readers. Ben is in the Top 5 having read over 70 books!

I’m so proud of our ravenous readers here at Murray Hill Middle School! This is what brings us the most joy – having kids come in every day (sometimes twice a day!) gobbling up new books and enjoying them!

When I first heard this, I thought it was too good to be true! I thanked her vaguely on Twitter then I thought – could I possibly share it with everyone? So, I called her to double check that I could share it with you, the world, and his wife – and she said YES!

Students (and your kids!) can choose FREE eBooks from a library of over 3,200 to download & read over the break****

From Mythology, Scary Stories, Fiction, to Graphic Novels – there’s more than enough interesting titles to choose. You can even access interactive books to read to your little siblings or to your pets! (They always deserve it!)

Middle school kiddos can filter by grade level.

Below there’s even a letter to for parents (in English & Spanish) or students AND Bonus: a printable bookmark with login & password.

*****(Download FAST offer ends Jan 15th)

Visit our Library Media Center to load up on books for the Winter Break! Take home as many as you want! (as long as you don’t have any overdue books, cause – you know – I ain’t THAT crazy!) We have many readers in our school (you know who you are!) who can read a book a day — ok, sometimes even more! We want to make sure you’ve got great stuff to enjoy!

Why not Tweet a Thank you to Katie & Capstone for this generous gift to all our reading families!? That would be Awesome! Please say you heard it from @GwynethJones the Daring Librarian! Maybe if we show our gratitude enough, we’ll get even more FREE trials! W00t! Who doesn’t like FREE?

Thanks to our our A+ partner Librarians at the Howard County Library and two of our local HCPSS Middle School Teacher-Librarians we have created this Super Fun Reading List for all the kiddos in our district! (or the world!)

Visit our Howard County local Savage Branch Library & Hi Tech STEM Education Center this summer and FLIP over summer reading or flip over some amazing tech learning opportunities! ((Pssst!
The 8th Grade Slide Show is at the bottom of this post!))

As Sophia (the delightfully cheerful girl above) reported on MHTV News we must share something distasteful with you.

Why? Because I recently awoke feeling a dreadful malaise and a lingering doleful fear about something I just uncovered. When I say “uncover” imagine turning over a mossy rock expecting cute wriggly earth worms and rolly polly pill bugs only to find a suspect piece of butterscotch candy wrapped in a soggy cellophane wrapper…well, read below for our news story.

Oh, and don’t be angry with me OR with the smiley Sophia…we HAD to give this news to give you pause!

Here’s the Script:

We here at #MHTVNews usually like to share uplifting and heartwarming stories about young people who joyfully create amazing things and are rewarded for their Scientific, Literary, Artistic, and or Academic Achievements.

Today not so much.

We’re here to give a warning that there is a pernicious, which means here deadly, and terrifying new series now available for streaming onthis thing called The Netflix.

It’s called:

The Series of Unfortunate Events

by Lemony Snicket.

(And as a wry aside, may I add that this is surely a silly name for a terribly sinister author! I met him once in 2004, at the Howard County Public Library – He signed a book for me and though I was introduced to him by one of my favourite students as the Evil Daring Librarian Ms. Jones – he said I was only Allegedly Evil! As if! [snit] /a)

Please don’t watch this next video if you are sensitive by nature.

You can look away now.

Of course, we have all the books in this horrid series in the Murray Hill Daring School Library Media Center, we consider that fair warning so that you may read them, if you are so inclined, to be properly prepared. They are terrible books of horrible events and only appreciated by those who are slightly tetched in the heid (Scottish variety) or bloodthirsty.

Again, you’ve been warned.

Oh and Count Olaf? We’re keeping a weather eye on you, you can be sure of that! No more sneaking around and hiding in my Library Office.

Thanks to our our A+ partner Librarians at the Howard County Library and two of our local HCPSS Middle School Teacher-Librarians we have created this Super Fun Reading List for all the kiddos in our district! (or the world!)

“Banned Books Week is the national book community’s annual celebration of the freedom to read. Hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events. The 2015 celebration will be held September 27-October 3.

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982 according to the American Library Association.”

To celebrate banned book week here at MHMS we created a book display covering up some of the most banned books with strategic tear outs. We also created a couple QR Code resources for kiddos to learn more about Banned Books!

We here at the MHMS Daring School Library believe in the freedom to read without censorship!

Middle school is a WONDERFUL but quirky time for kids with wide ranges of maturity and reading levels. (and that’s why I teach middle school – because, LOVE IT!) But, I must admit, there are a few books that we have that I consider maybe to be more 7th or 8th grade in subject matter than right 6th graders. That’s when I sometimes exercise my judgement as a certified school librarian to say to a 6th grader – this may be too mature for you, wait till next year. But I wouldn’t EVER want to take that book off the shelf and not let a kid “grow into it” nor do I approve of forcing a kid to read a book. It’s all about the Freedom of Choice! Read more about Banned Book Week!